Research

Don’t you just love meetings? Yes, this is a joke: almost no one loves meetings. Most people groan, sometimes out loud, when they think about them. In fact, I know people who hate them so much they can barely say the word — they refer to them as “the ‘M’ word.” Meetings tend to be … Continue reading →

Leaders are always searching for ways to be more effective. Although research suggests that trusting people more is a particularly potent way to increase team member performance, trusting more is not natural – leaders’ natural tendencies are to be particularly cautious because trusting means taking risks that they can easily avoid. In Do Nothing! How … Continue reading →

Sheryl Sandberg’s best seller, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, is an important, beautifully written book. In it Sheryl rekindles the critical questions of feminism and equality. Just as the civil rights movement in the U.S. continues to need attention to reach its ultimate goals, so, too, does the women’s movement need … Continue reading →

Sally Blount, our dean here at Kellogg, has recently been writing about the prospect of a Collaboration Economy. She suggests that our rapidly changing world is and will be forcing businesses and organizations to take a markedly new approach to what they do and that this reorientation and change is not just smart but necessary. … Continue reading →

One of the reasons that I became a social scientist may have been a bit naïve: I couldn’t help thinking that, if people truly understood the reasons for other people’s behaviors, they would blame them less and they could have stronger, more positive interactions. Thus, I had a notion that learning more about ‘why people … Continue reading →

People do research to understand the world around them. Physicists find out wonderful things about how the physical world works; chemists discover the dazzling effects of various chemical combinations; and social scientists focus on that elusive character, the human being, to discover whether our amazing quirks are not only interesting but also predictable. One of … Continue reading →

Leadership always involves ethical challenges: should I do the right thing or should I see what I can get away with to better my own outcomes? These are age-old dilemmas that appeared when we were kids – and they always hound us, regardless of our age or maturity. In fact, some of our own research … Continue reading →

“Do Nothing” leadership doesn’t mean that you can play golf every day. Instead, it means doing less than you did in your last job so you can focus your time and effort on facilitating and orchestrating. Thus, “Do Nothing” leaders don’t really do nothing in a literal sense. Instead, they think of great strategies and … Continue reading →

Welcome to the first post of my new leadership blog. I hope to add entries as often as every two weeks. Each entry will focus primarily on research findings that relate to leadership in a wide array of areas. Entry #1: The hidden value of a growth-mindset: I have long been enthralled by Carol Dweck’s … Continue reading →

“Do Nothing! will stand out as among the most imaginative, fun, and useful leadership books ever published. Murnighan uses rigorous research to provide detailed advice that will help leaders do their jobs better, develop more adept and committed followers, and to suffer from less stress and overwork. Even though most business books present new wine in old bottles, Do Nothing! is the rare book that provides a refreshing perspective and tangible advice that isn’t available anyplace else.”

Robert I. Sutton, Author of THE NO ASSHOLE RULE: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't